The State Motto."Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice"translated means,"If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you."

State Flag
& Coat of ArmsAdopted
in 1911
(third since becoming a state in 1837)

On the blue shield the sun
rises over a lake and peninsula, a man with raised hand and holding
a gun represents peace and the ability to defend his rights. The elk
and moose are symbols of Michigan, while the eagle represents the
United States.

State Flower:Apple BlossomDesignated in 1897

State Bird:RobinDesignated in 1931

State Tree:White PineDesignated in 1955

State Wild FlowerDwarf Lake IrisDesignated in 1998

State Fish:Brook TroutDesignated in 1965

State Mammal:
Whitetail DeerDesignated in 1997

State Insect:Green Darner Dragon Fly(unofficial)

State Reptile:Painted TurtleDesignated in 1995

State Gem: Chlorastrolite
(Greenstone)

State
Stone: Petoskey StoneDesignated in 1965

State Soil:Kalkaska SandDesignated in 1990

State
Fossil:MastodonDesignated in 2002

State Song: "My
Michigan" words by Giles
Kavanagh and music by H. O'Reilly Clint

More about the State Stone: Petoskey Stones are fossilized colony
corals (Hexagonaria percarinata). Their origin is traced back to Devonian seas that
covered Michigan's Lower Peninsula about 350 million years ago.

The soft, living tissue of corals is called the polyp. A limey substance is secreted by
the polyp, hardening into corallite -- a skeletal base which supports the polyp and keeps
it from being buried alive by bottom debris. Petoskey stones found in Michigan consist of
massive corallas of varying sizes. The limey skeletons were replaced by calcite or silica
in a cell-by-cell process called petrifaction.

When glaciers scraped the bedrock surface, fragments of this rock were carried and
deposited elsewhere, primarily in the north half of the Lower Peninsula. In 1965, the
Michigan legislature became the first in the nation to select a fossil as its state stone.

Petoskey stones may be found on beaches, road cuts, ditches, gravel pits and sand blows
all over the state. Similar fossils of the Hexagonaria genus occur in many parts of the
world, but the "percarinata" is limited to the Traverse Group.